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Restaurant roulette: The Broiler closes, the Beer Bar opens

Apr 01st 2014

Let's start with the good news: Following an amazing amount of national hype—TV actor Ty Burrell and Food Network regular Viet Pham lent their flatscreen luster to pre-opening coverage—the Beer Bar opened Monday. It's right next to Burrell's other SLC hipster success story, Bar-X.

We went to a preview last week. The giant sign is the only really eye-riveting feature of Beer Bar. Inside, it's all picnic tables and Hofbrau House type beer hall seating, without the singing and polkas.

To sum up: the Beer Bar serves lots of beer, over 140 different beers. Plus beer cocktails, plus boilermakers, plus variations of beer and shots. IF you've ever been to Wurstkuche in L.A., you've pretty much been to Beer Bar. Except for two things—

1. It's in Salt Lake City!!!!!!!! A beer hall like this in this city is a BIG NEW DEAL.

2. The wurst. Despite Viet's vaunted role as consulting chef, the real star of the food at Beer Bar is Frocy Volgger's wurst.

The artisan sausagemeister makes 13 different kinds of wurst for Beer Bar. They're displayed in a cold case at the front of the bar. We tried a smple kielbssa on a bun with sauerkraut and it was fabulous. Belgian fries are good, too.

As for the Marketplace Broiler—although I was treated to lunch ther and e pitched a stor just a couple of weeks ago by owner Gastronomy Inc.'s publicity person, I received an email last night announcing the restaurant's closure, effective immediately. Efforts are being made to reassign employees.